Gollewon Ellee.
Fairy lights. Mysterious lanterns seen in the woods, luring the unwary to their doom...
Gollewon Ellee is
my contribution to the anthology
Once Upon A Scream, an anthology of horror-tinged fairy stories and stories
about fairies from
Horror Addicts.net Press.
Gollewon Ellee is set in around 1910 in a remote corner of Essex on
Harley’s Mount and features two young girls who follow the titular fairy lights
that haunt the hill.
Harley’s Mount and its environs have been the setting for a
number of my stories and poems and first came into existence around twenty
years ago, although I have refined and expanded upon the detail of the region
over time, even releasing
a booklet detailing some of its history and folklore.
Along with the ghostly
Harley himself, the fairy lights are one of the earliest
elements of the extensive folk lore I’ve developed for the Mount (although the
name only came later), featuring in the as-yet-unpublished novel that was the
second piece of fiction set on the Mount and initially written twenty years ago
(although substantially rewritten more than once since). Interestingly,
following the fairy lights twice plays an important role in the novel.
The fairy lights themselves and their use in both stories
derives from folk lore, where such lights were thought to be carried by fairies
or to be the souls of the dead, and that to follow them was not a sensible
thing to do. There is also a hint of UFOlogy in there, if you know where to
look (deriving from the idea that fairies and aliens are different
interpretations of the same motif or phenomenon through different cultural
lenses).
While horror fiction, especially that of Lovecraft, has had
some influence upon my creation of the Mount region, it is folk lore, rural
culture and history that have most influenced its creation, along with one
novel,
The Snow Spider by Jenny
Nimmo, which played a key role in catalysing that novel so long ago and very
faint hints of which can be seen in
Gollewon
Ellee. (
The Snow Spider really
resonates with me and has had a more overt influence on at least one other of
my recently-published stories.)
Finally, it can be said that the fictional Mount was
inspired by a very real hill in Essex where my grandparents lived for a time.
While not quite as imposing nor as haunted, it was still a fascinating place
that gripped my imagination and provided a template in which to set stories
that had been brewing for a time beforehand and a place for which I retain fond
memories.
Marked By
Scorn from Solarwyrm Press is currently crowdfunding. The volume features
stories about non-traditional relationships, the sort you don’t so often see in
the mainstream, and features stories from around the world.
